REVIEW: Beyond the Eyes by Rebekkah Ford

Title: Beyond the Eyes

Author: Rebekkah Ford

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Blurb:

Paige knows evil exists in this world, but she never imagined it would want something from her.

After a ghostly voice whispers a haunting message to seventeen-year-old Paige Reed, Paige’s life takes a nightmarish turn. Unwilling to tell her friends about the supernatural occurrences happening in her life, Paige feels more alone than ever–until she meets Nathan Caswell.

Nathan is not only hot, but seems to peer into Paige’s soul, evoking a magnetic energy between them that cannot be denied. But he’s no ordinary guy. He tracks dark spirits, and becomes alarmed when they set their sights on Paige.

And then there are the two power-hungry dark spirits who believe Paige can find King Solomon’s magical ring for them, because when her father was alive, he was close to finding it. If Paige doesn’t comply with their demands, they’ll kill her. 

Paige is forced to dig deep into her father’s past and unearths shocking secrets about him and his bloodline. With the past and present colliding, Paige is only sure about two things in her life: she needs to outwit the dark spirits to stay alive, and she’s completely and helplessly in love with Nathan.

This review is about the book Beyond the Eyes by Rebekkah Ford. This book is about a girl, Paige, that has gotten premonitions since she was young. Her mother isn’t around much but she meets a man named Nathan who turns out to be someone she never could have imagined.

Rebekkah Ford grew up in a family that dealt with the paranormal. Her parents' Charles and Geri Wilhelm were the directors of the UFO Investigator's League in Fairfield, Ohio, back in the 1970s. They also investigated ghost hauntings and Bigfoot sightings in addition to UFO's. Growing up in this type of environment and having the passion for writing is what drove Rebekkah at an early age to write stories dealing with the paranormal. At one point in her life, she thought she wanted to be a journalist, and although she enjoyed writing articles, she quickly discovered her real passion was writing fiction. Her fascination with the paranormal is what led her to write the 'Beyond the Eyes' trilogy.

The book promises a thrilling first book in a new YA series. It definitely holds up its promise. I could not put this book down. I am so glad there will be follow up books to this as I can’t get enough.

I did have some pitfalls to this book. Where I knew this was YA, the constant “feelings” between Nathan and Paige are distracting. I feel that it takes away from the plot and the book as a whole. I started to feel like I was starting to slide the slippery “Twilight” slope. Also, I am used to the change scenes being a little better notated. Whenever the scene changed, a new paragraph started. There should be a more noticeable break as some readers can get confused. There was a lot of redundancy as well. Paige had to be told quite a lot that she could die or would die, yet she never seemed to accept this and had to be told yet again. There was also an over-use of the word “shuddering”. And even though Paige constantly tells everyone how independent she is, she came off very needy; she was constantly seeking attention from the people around her. This can become a very unlikeable quality.

But, don’t get me wrong. This is a very good book and I would recommend it because even though I am picky, this was a very quick read and the plot wasn’t overdone. It was simple and sometimes you have to step away from the complicated plots and characters for a breath of fresh air.

I have to admit that when I heard YA, I instantly thought “Twilight”. I am so glad I was wrong. Where, yes, I felt like this book did tread those tracks, I didn’t feel the need to grab a rope and hang myself. Not that “Twilight” wasn’t good, I guess, if you are a teenager and feel like the whole world hates you and need supernatural beings to make you feel good about yourself. That series also was so redundant that I wanted to scream and hang myself. I, thank goodness, did not have that with this book. I actually felt it was a grown up story is a teenager’s body. The story has so much room to grow and become that bestseller that I know it can be.

To bring this to a close, don’t pass this book up. The story is great, the characters are good, and the writing is superb. I am overly critical so please read and get your own conclusions. I loved it and cannot wait to get to book 2.

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